The present invention relates to a brake control unit.
A brake control unit is installed in a vehicle of the related art, such as an automobile and the brake control unit performs various brake controls.
For example, when wheels are likely to be locked, the brake control unit detects this situation and performs an Antilock Brake System (ABS) control in which the wheels are prevented from being locked by loosening brakes. Furthermore, the brake control unit performs, in addition to the ABS control, a control in which, when a braking operation of the vehicle is performed, a motion of the vehicle is stabilized by the optimal distribution of a braking force to the wheels, and the like.
A brake control in which a motion of a vehicle is stabilized using data on a vehicle speed, a yaw rate detected by a yaw rate sensor, steering angles, and the like has been disclosed in, for example, JP-T-2004-516194.
However, in recent years, it has been required that, in addition to the brake control by the brake control unit, a brake control which is performed based on a brake control signal transmitted from another control unit (an external control unit) installed in a vehicle be applied.
That is, in some cases, the vehicle is equipped with not only the brake control unit but also the external control unit (a control unit of a third party) and a brake control signal which is based on control logic saved in the external control unit is output from the external control unit to the brake control unit. In this case, it is conceivable that the brake control unit receives the intervention of the brake control signal from the external control unit and performs a brake control of the vehicle based on the received brake control signal.
However, in some cases, the brake control of a vehicle, which is performed based on the brake control signal transmitted from the external control unit, results in the behavior of the vehicle becoming unstable. Thus, it is conceivable that, in some cases, the brake control which is performed with the intervention of the brake control signal output from the external control unit is improper.